Police to question alleged broker of organ transplants in China

YOKOHAMA – The Kanagawa Prefectural Police and other Japanese law enforcement agencies plan to question a 52-year-old man on suspicion of brokering organ transplants for Japanese in China in violation of Japan’s organ transplant law, sources said Wednesday.

Hiroyuki Nagase, representative of the China International Organ Transplant Support Center based in Shenyang, allegedly acted as a go-between for patients seeking transplants through a Web site starting around 2004.

Nagase was detained in China in October 2007 in connection with illegal organ transplants and was sentenced last month by a court in Shenyang to 14 months in prison and a fine of 100,000 yuan (about ¥1.4 million) for false advertising related to his organ transplant brokering business.

According to the Web site and the sources, the transplants were carried out by Chinese doctors at hospitals in Shanghai, Shenyang and Beijing. The cost was ¥6 million to ¥7.5 million for a kidney transplant and ¥13 million to ¥18 million for a liver transplant.

Nagase is also suspected of brokering transplants in the Philippines, the sources said.

Japanese police have determined that pursuing charges against Nagase would not constitute double jeopardy because he was not found guilty in China of brokering transplants, which is against the law in Japan, they said.

The police have asked Chinese authorities through Interpol for their findings and are trying to identify the Japanese patients and Chinese donors involved in the transplants Nagase brokered, the sources said.

Nagase was deported to Japan on Tuesday after completing his jail term in China the previous day.